A 2015 conducted study by the University of North Carolina called El Salvador the country that has achieved the greatest progress in the world in terms of increased access to water supply and sanitation and the reduction of inequity in access between urban and rural areas.

[2] However, water resources are heavily polluted and the great majority of wastewater is discharged without any treatment into the environment.

According to a survey carried out in 2001 by the Salvadoran think tank FUSADES the rural poor in particular spend a significant share of their productive time collecting water.

El Salvador's water resources are highly polluted, owing in part to the almost total absence of municipal wastewater treatment.

That reform package would have included the setting of tariffs based on the goal of cost recovery, the creation of a regulator and the introduction of private sector participation.

Water supply and sanitation in El Salvador are the responsibility of a large number of diverse service providers.

The dominant service provider is the Administración Nacional de Acueductos y Alcantarillados (ANDA), which provides services to 40 percent of the total population of El Salvador in 149 out of the country's 262 municipalities, including the metropolitan area of San Salvador and the country's other two main cities, Santa Ana and San Miguel.

More than 100 housing developers have often built their own autonomous urban water systems because ANDA was unable to connect them.

[8] The Social Investment Fund (FISDL) plans and builds water supply systems in the 36 poorest municipalities of El Salvador.

[9] The Water and Sanitation Network of El Salvador (RASES) provides a forum for the exchange of experiences in the sector, in particular concerning rural areas.

Third, among users that have ANDA service, the poor receive fewer subsidies than the non-poor as a consequence of the tariff structure.

[8] Tariffs paid by water users in rural areas do recover financial operating costs, since no direct subsidies are available.

Some rural water users in pumped systems receive a subsidy through the Fondo de Inversión Nacional en Electricidad y Telefonía (FINET), which subsidizes electricity tariffs.

ANDA's working ratio was close to 1, indicating that the company barely covers its operating and routine maintenance costs.

This program is being executed by three agencies: the Social Investment Fund for Local Development, El Salvador's Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources, and ANDA.